UFC--Boxing

I like the UFC. For those who don't know much about it, UFC stands for Ultimate Fighting Championship, and organization that puts on MMA fights. MMA is mixed martial arts, a style of fighting that includes boxing, wrestling, judo, grappling, kickboxing, jujitsu and other fighting disciplines.

Where boxing matches go 10-12 three-minute rounds, UFC fights have three five-minute rounds. Championship fights go five rounds. The mixed disciplines and shorter fights lead to more action, generally. Fights can go the distance and end on decisions, but they can also end by knock out or when one fighter gets another to submit by putting them in a hold that puts pressure on a joint or deprives them of oxygen, through a choke hold.

The gloves are much thinner in MMA, so fighters get knocked down quicker. And because fighting on the ground is allowed, when one guy gets knocked down, the fight doesn't stop for a count. While it sounds more barbaric than boxing, there isn't the accumulation of punches that do long-term damage, as there is in boxing. If an MMA fighter gets stunned and can't defend intelligently, the fight is over. In boxing, with the bigger gloves, it's harder to land a punch that has the impact to knock a guy loopy for 10 seconds, so they take many, many more punches.

I also like boxing. But the multiple sanctioning organizations and the continuing frustration of fighters taking big, guaranteed paydays rather than fights against other top fighters makes it tough to follow.

The recaps of the Bernard Hopkins-Kelly Pavlik fight described it as a one-sided trouncing. And while it was that, when I watched the replay, I kept marvelling at how little actual action there was and how few clean hard shots were landed over the course of twelve rounds.

So the buzz about the UFC (and smaller MMA promotional organizations) has been growing. Some say they have passed by boxing. Boxing purists call MMA a sideshow fad. But as this article points out, the UFC has been going pretty strong for a while and has some elements that could enable it to continue taking a significant slice of the fighting pie.